We used to smack the water with tree branches to bring the gators in close when I was a kid....
They are not like sharks in the sense of "blood in the water".... Dark water with a lot of splashin' and I'll be the first to get the hell off the edge if you know what I mean....
Best gator bait in the world is a white feathered bird.... trust me.... Gators have a fetish for anything white.... Throw a piece of styrofoam out into a gator pond and it will have bite marks on it in the morning...
I, for one, will be VERY happy when they go BACK on the endangered list....